Lester Chambers
Next Day recap... I am sore all over. Beaten but not broken. I can't laugh, sing, hardly talk long or take a deep breath without chest pain.. All my joints ache. My hips feel sore as can be... I haven't been in a fight since I was 15 or 16 back in highschool and 60 years later I am assaulted on stage... I WANT PEACE... PLEASE KEEP THE PEACE... LOVE PEACE AND HAPPINESS

(GENTLY for Lester!)

What a good man. This is his response to being attacked by a crazed woman pissed off that he dedicated "People Get Ready" to Trayvon Martin. Takes me back to all of the people who stood their ground....peacefully......for civil rights. Thank you, Lester, may the love & prayers you're getting from the tons of people who know how wrong this verdict was and how pathetically horrid it was for you to be attacked for honoring Trayvon in that most appropriate way, we're glad you're on the mend and hope all of those healing vibes we're sending out are gently taking hold of you to help you heal.

At today’s Senate Banking Committee hearing, Elizabeth Warren introduced the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act of 2013, co-sponsored by Senators McCain, Cantwell, and King. The bill mirrors the heart of the original 1933 law, which separated traditional banking activity (like checking and lending) from the riskier activity investment banking (like derivatives).

The original law was repealed in 1999 toward the end of the Clinton administration, though the law had been eroding for years leading up to 1999. This repeal was one of several laws passed during that era which allowed the big banks to transform into megabanks, in part creating our current “too big to fail” policy.

This new bill from Senator Warren aims to play a part in reversing this trend so the banks will be smaller. After all, the three biggest banks (Chase, Bank of America, and Citi) are all bloated conglomerate banks that have enormous traditional and investment subsidiaries, so these banks wouldn’t be able to continue as they’re currently instituted. They would be broken up into much smaller firms.

What’s more, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act of 2013 will make it so banks cannot gamble with derivatives using depositor’s money like they do today. Currently, anyone who has money at banks like Chase, Bank of America, or Citi is implicitly using that money to help these banks make amplified bets that have the potential to cause another global meltdown. Reintroducing Glass-Steagall will make it so depositor’s money cannot be used for the derivatives market. This would be a major step toward restoring sanity to Wall Street.

Suppose a small group of extremely wealthy people sought to systematically destroy the U.S. government by (1) finding and bankrolling new candidates pledged to shrinking and dismembering it; (2) intimidating or bribing many current senators and representatives to block all proposed legislation, prevent the appointment of presidential nominees, eliminate funds to implement and enforce laws, and threaten to default on the nation’s debt; (3) taking over state governments in order to redistrict, gerrymander, require voter IDs, purge voter rolls, and otherwise suppress the votes of the majority in federal elections; (4) running a vast PR campaign designed to convince the American public of certain big lies, such as climate change isn't occurring, and (5) buying up the media so the public cannot know the truth. Would you call this treason?

The Congress of the United States has determined by inaction to let various people grift over America's college students, and the senior senator from Massachusetts would like to know why in the fk this kind of thing is allowed to happen.

On Friday, Warren sent a letter to the CEO of the student lender, accusing Sallie Mae of "piling on" government supported benefits while reaping "big fees" from students. "While Sallie Mae is finding unique ways to profit from government programs, its borrowers are paying interest rates that are far in excess of the low cost of funds supported by the U.S. taxpayers," she wrote. The latest letter marks the newest round in a lengthy back and forth between the freshman senator and the student lender. What began as an inquiry into a low-interest line of credit Sallie Mae received from a government-created bank that primarily exists to support housing, has broadened into a critique of high student loan interest rates in general. "If we are serious about investing in our future, we should help our students pay for their education - not find ways to squeeze more profits from them. I believe it is time to align priorities in Washington with those of the American people," she added in her Friday letter.

This has been an ongoing thing. One quibble -- this is not something that has "broadened into a critique." This is a continuation of all the issues that SPW has been fighting over her entire public career -- namely, the connivance of big banks and government agencies to jam it to all the rest of us.

On Monday, Warren set off the debate, sending a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the nation's housing enterprises. In it, she asked why Sallie Mae, a private student loan provider, had received a low interest, $8.5 billion line of credit from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines. The nation's 12 Federal Home Loan Banks were created in the wake of the Great Depression, with the primary goal of ensuring access to low-cost funding for banks, which in turn could use them to offer affordable mortgages. The banks are owned by the nation's financial institutions, which buy into the banks in exchange for access to the low-cost funds, but are sponsored by the government.

Noting that Sallie Mae made $2.5 billion on student loan interest in 2012, Warren asked the regulator why it should get a 0.23 percent line of credit, while it was charging 25 to 40 times that amount on its own private student loans.

They might as well have burned a cross on Dr. King's grave. The Jim Crow majority on the Supreme Court just took away the vote of millions of Hispanic and African-American voters by wiping away Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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When I say "millions" of voters of color will lose their ballots, I'm not kidding. Let's add it up.

Last year, the GOP Secretary of State of Florida Ken Detzner tried to purge 180,000 Americans, mostly Hispanic Democrats, from the voter rolls. He was attempting to break Katherine Harris' record.

I'm taking the chance of posting this -- it was within the article but it's not really part of the article. Please just let me know if I should take it out because the PTB think it goes over the 4 paragraphs limit rather than locking the post or something. This is Greg's direct plea:

I'm so angry, so distraught by this, that I've asked my foundation to release my film, Election Files, for free. This is a no-BS, no charge download of my series of investigative reports for BBC Television and RollingStone.com. Click here.

Furthermore, I'm directing the Palast Investigative Team to drop all other work for a 'round-the-clock investigation of the Theft of 2014 and 2016 elections that the Supreme Court's ruling sets in motion. Help us. Join us.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service's screening of groups seeking tax-exempt status was broader and lasted longer than has been previously disclosed, the new head of the agency said Monday.

An internal IRS document obtained by The Associated Press said that besides "tea party," lists used by screeners to pick groups for close examination also included the terms "Israel," ''Progressive" and "Occupy." The document said an investigation into why specific terms were included was still underway.

In a conference call with reporters, Danny Werfel said that after becoming acting IRS chief last month, he discovered wide-ranging and improper terms on the lists and said screeners were still using them. He did not specify what terms were on the lists, but said he suspended the use of all such lists immediately.

"There was a wide-ranging set of categories and cases that spanned a broad spectrum" on the lists, Werfel said. He added that his aides found those lists contained "inappropriate criteria that was in use."

A controversial Florida-based Christian ministry that advised gay people "seeking freedom from unwanted same-sex attraction" plans to shut its doors.

Exodus International announced in a statement Wednesday that its board of directors voted unanimously to close down "after a year of dialogue and prayer about the organization's place in a changing culture." The Orlando-based ministry says it opened in 1976 and boasts member agencies around the world.

"Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we've ceased to be a living, breathing organism," Exodus President Alan Chambers said in the statement. "For quite some time we've been imprisoned in a worldview that's neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical."

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"It is strange to be someone who has both been hurt by the church's treatment of the LGBT community, and also to be someone who must apologize for being part of the very system of ignorance that perpetuated that hurt," said Chambers. "Today it is as if I've just woken up to a greater sense of how painful it is to be a sinner in the hands of an angry church."

The number of people in Britain receiving emergency food rations has more than doubled in the past year, data showed on Wednesday, as inflation eroded incomes and government spending cuts pushed hundreds of thousands into crisis.

The Trussell Trust, which runs the largest network of food banks in the UK, saw referrals to its centres jump to almost 350,000 in the year to April 2013, up from 130,000 the previous year. The charity estimates that about half of the households it helped had at least one person in work, and a third had children.

The 170 per cent surge in demand for food handouts will fuel debate over the impact of government austerity on poorer households, amid concerns about the effect on demand as consumers cut back on everyday spending.

Trussell Trust food banks do not accept walk-in requests for help. They only provide food to people who have been officially referred by a recognised frontline agency, such as a GP, jobcentre, social worker or the police. For policy makers, the high proportion of emergency food going to working households illustrates the wider trend in the post-recession job market, where many new jobs are part time, temporary and low paid – meaning even those in work sometimes struggle to put food on the table.

Where have the consciouses and brains of all of the law-makers in all of these countries gone? This is a predicted and predictable pattern every single time, yet it's being steamrolled through in most countries, including ours. Globalization in the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries means mega-corporations and the 1% oligarchy have taken hold internationally and own not just our government, but those of Britain and most other countries! We need a worldwide 99% coordinated strike!

In light of the standoff in Washington -- and the continuing dysfunction in our nation's capital -- many of you are angry and frustrated. Some of you say you've had it with politics. Others feel powerless and hopeless. A number blame both parties, seeing Democrats as no different from Republicans.

All these reactions are exactly what the regressives want. This is the heart of their strategy. They want you to see all of politics and all politicians as crooks and con-artists, fools or knaves. They want you to give up. That way, they can have it all. They can turn the clock back on America. They can shred every safety net, eviscerate every regulation, prevent any investment in the health and education of future generations. They can hammer the poor and middle class with lower wages, fewer jobs, and less security, and create a plutocracy of the privileged and powerful. Get it? They want you out of the way so they have America to themselves. The showdowns and standoffs and gridlock in Washington are part of their plot.

We must not let them. The progressive forces in this country are stronger than the regressive ones, but only if we are united and determined. Don't stop making a ruckus. Don't stop writing and calling your representatives. Don't stop mobilizing others, and organizing at the grass roots. 2014 will be a key election year. We must take our democracy back.

I love this. And I think he's right. I see exactly what he's talking about in so many recent DU attitudes and in myself. Time to reenergize & fight the good fight! We're right and most of the country agrees with us -- we can't let the evil fuckers win.